


Drone → Silence → Hysteria

by MudaMuda



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Canon Universe, Cold War, Gen, Japanese Reconstruction, Post-War, Violence, World War II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-31
Updated: 2018-07-31
Packaged: 2019-06-19 02:45:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15500589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MudaMuda/pseuds/MudaMuda
Summary: “Prompt and utter destruction” was the famous threat outlined in the Potsdam Declaration, if Japan didn’t surrender unconditionally.





	Drone → Silence → Hysteria

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Inside Face, Outside Face](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13207518) by [MudaMuda](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MudaMuda/pseuds/MudaMuda). 



> This fic was supposed to be a more historically accurate and expanded version of Inside Face, Outside Face, and while it's both of those things, something about it feels kinda lackluster.
> 
> Anyway, here's my A Brief History of Time claim.  
> It's about the aftermath of ww2, on Japan's end, set between 1945-1952.

The second bomb hadn’t levelled Tokyo or Kyoto. If it had, he would likely be dead.

This was strategic, Japan thought. No doubt, an utter decimation of his enemy would look bad for America.

For whatever motive he had, America needed him barely capable of movement.

\----

_Phase One_

There is general celebration, as Japan’s surrender marked the end of the war, but Japan feels no relief.

America rolls in shortly after, with military support.

Once Japan is released from the hospital, he’s confined to his house by America’s orders.

He’s sitting by the open screen door, enjoying the solitude, when America comes in.

“The Allies were thinking of splitting you up,” America says. “It could’ve been Russia here, instead of me. Planting li’l commie flags everywhere and sending you to the gulag, but I said hell no. You’re lucky."

Japan doesn’t feel lucky. America’s presence is unbearable.

It would have been kinder to be left alone to put himself back together, because it’s ungainly to be seen, limping away from a war, as the loser.

Japan folds his sleeves in his lap and doesn’t give him the courtesy of acknowledgement.

“Japan,” says America. “Did you hear me?”

“Leave me an _ounce_ of pride,” Japan says.

“I’m not here to make you look bad. You did that yourself. I need your country rebuilt.”

“Surely, not for my sake.”

“I need strong allies on this side of the world,” says America. “And you’re the most stubborn and fearless son of a bitch I’ve fought.”

 _Nationalism makes people go to crazy extremes for pride,_ Japan thinks America would add, in a less diplomatic setting. If this can be called diplomacy.

And America is not proud of Japan’s strength. It’s nothing but an empty compliment, now that the war is over and they’re not fighting.

“Anyway,” America says, ending his pretense of respect. “It’s not like you have a choice.”

Japan continues to ignore him. America comes closer, kneeling just behind him.

“You actually believed your leaders would bring you glory?”

“I”, says Japan, “do not condone reckless and excessive pride.”

“I gave you prompt and utter destruction, and you told me to go fuck myself,” says America. “No one is that crazy.”

He sounds excited. Japan wonders… surely America had heard the insult many times before.

Or, it’s the amount of egotism he has; that merely being opposed generates surprise and righteous anger.

“America, you are not the be all, end all of this world” is what Japan would say, if he did not know this was not the case. America could certainly be the end all, and then the be all. He had demonstrated this to Japan, and had demonstrated it to the world.

Japan had dreaded this. He had seen it forming, and now it was here-- America was _the_ global power. America had saved the _world_.

\----

Japan swallows his pride and focuses on recovery. His focus has always been recovery. Feelings of hatred, and shame, and self-pity are not useful.

He closes his eyes and listens to his people’s voices. Everyone is starving, and all they want is to not be starving. And they want their lives back.

Selfish emotions like pride are petty.

But really, they are _not._

He’s proud to be a Japanese. His people are proud to be Japanese, upholding the Japanese spirit.

But he has nothing to be proud of, right now.

His culture remains, and he’s fiercely clinging to that. It is devastating to feel America taking control of his country, even if it’s ultimately, supposedly, going to help. Being so closely monitored and contained makes him nervous. America calls it xenophobia, but Japan wonders if he would call it the same, if he were in his place.

Even if Japan somehow had the means to rebuild his nation by himself, he hasn’t been allowed the choice.

He rattled with the indignity of being so helpless.

Along with indignity, Japan has been overwhelmed with emotion lately, and the shameful one he mindfully continues to push down is:

_I wanted to win._

It’s cruel and selfish to wish that on his people, who have suffered so much.

And yet. He and his older civilians have lived through the Meiji era. They’ve experienced the western presence encroaching, dominating. Being condescended to, pushed out of discussions, underestimated.

Now that the war is over, it’s a useless desire to want to win.

Maybe he wasn’t ever powerful enough to win. Maybe dominance over the west was a silly fantasy he created because he hated America so much.

America, who was the worst of all, the worst offender among the westerners, the ringleader of the Allies, and the powerhouse of the entire world, who did not have to stand in court alongside Japan and be measured for his crimes. Instead, leveling cities with radioactive fire twice, and letting the resulting decay rise up, fall down, and leech poison throughout an entire nation, was considered the most logical end to the war.

Japan understands it’s beyond America’s power to answer personally for the actions of his leaders. He can only apologize so many times.

But Japan does not expect a stream of apologies. America has never been like that.

America never risks apologizing unless he’s done something truly awful, not so the apology carries weight, but so he is fully dominant and in control until he is obliged by popular morality to admit a moment of weakness. ‘Weakness’ is what he calls it, but does not specify the wrongness of the action.

 

Thus, America only apologizes once. And it’s at a stupid time.

“I’m sorry that happened” he says quietly, when word comes over the radio that schools of tuna as far as Fukushima have been declared inedible from the radiation. The sea uninhabitable.

So specific, and yet cosmically indirect as to the largest issue.

And yet, Japan doesn’t care if America is sorry, or if he couldn’t care less.

An apology doesn’t change the disrespect, and the disregard for innocent life.

Because Japan understands now, that the bomb was for something other than ending the war. It was a test. It was dropped on a pristine city to measure its power. It was a power move, directed at the Soviet Union.

 _Two birds with one stone,_ Japan thinks, and briefly sees red.

 

No. Anger isn’t useful right now.

Japan rarely gets angry, because it’s such an unnecessary emotion.

It’s not healthy to indulge. Fury is a low, reactionary decadence, that weak men allow to overcome them, rather than privileging a useful emotion.

Hatred, however, is acceptable. Japan can hate America without indulging the emotions that fuel it.

He doesn’t have to think about it. He knows, beyond the vast, encompassing hollowness in his chest, that he hates America.

\----

_Phase Two_

America seems delighted that he has a strategically viable foothold in the East, against Russia. When he builds a base of operations for his military in Okinawa, Japan expects it, but wishes he had the power to say no.

But then, most countries can’t say no to America, who does whatever he wants.

Maybe, all his discomfort with being pitied is in his head. America, as usual, doesn’t care about the personal, instead preferring to see the big picture, which in this case, was being better than Russia. And although Japan would never get used to America’s total disregard to the atmosphere of a relationship, the last thing he wanted was America’s pity.

After all, Japan is just one of his many allies, even though America has an important expectation for him-- being the only capitalist ally in East Asia.

America sits at his desk, scraping out his initials onto the paperwork that would seal this decision.

“Japan, you’re going to be the central headquarters of my awesome ideology in the Pacific,” he says, as he writes.

 _As long as you’re restrained under these conditions,_ Japan added mentally.

America caps his pen and flicks it against the desktop; frenetic clacking in excitement.

“Isn’t that great? I don’t where you’ll find the materials, but you’ll be making electronics so fast that Russia will never be able to keep up on this side of the market.”

_Russia, Russia, always Russia._

Japan wonders if America realizes how obsessed he sounds. Clearly, America had much bigger issues of his own to worry about than Japan’s struggling economy.

“You’d be the hegemon of the Pacific. But not like before,” America continues. “My eastern leader in industry, not, uh, having complete control over...”

He trails off, giving Japan an egregious shrug, filling in the silence with meaning Japan detests.

“ _You know_ ,” he says, and Japan knows exactly what he means, and the fact America was drawing attention to it was more obnoxious than Japan could put into words.

“What I mean is,” America says, pointing his thumbs at his chest and grinning. “We all can’t be like me. Especially Russia.”

America was well-meaning, but coarse and indelicate as usual. Blundering through everyone’s feelings carelessly in a frantic hurry to move forward.

It’s then Japan realizes that America’s overly energetic attitude, pushing him to do his best, is his way of apologizing. As thick-headed as he is, he also knows a single verbal apology won’t fix the devastation he caused.

Japan realizes he’s never apologized to America either, at least not personally. Formally, the Nation of Japan had given an apology.

Personally, the Nation of Japan was relentlessly unsatisfied.

_\----_

When Japan’s capacity to feel anger returns, it’s delayed.

Late one night, he’s working in his office, when America comes in.

“You’re still working? Aren’t you tired?” asks America.

Japan is exhausted, but that’s none of America’s business. He smiles a bit, showing he acknowledges him. America watches over his shoulder as he writes.

“You’re so elegant.”

He says it like it’s humorous. Like Japan would be more appreciated if he were inelegant.

It’s a step above “look here” or “smile more”, but with the same tone, and Japan bristles.

Japan doesn’t know what America would know about elegance.

 

Japan wonders if his own weak grasping to pride could be remotely construed as elegance.

\----

Japan can’t stop thinking about America’s words, hours after America had left.

_“You’re so elegant.”_

_You think you’re proving anything, Japan?_

(That’s America’s mocking implication).

_You have no right to have pride. Or control._

(America does not think he’s truly elegant. America has seen the wildness underneath. The stubbornness, the violence, and the uncouth curiosity).

_It’s amusing to watch you act like you have dignity. Is there anything dignified in helpless surrender?_

 

And finally, it surges in his chest: boiling, uncontrollable fury.

And he lets it overcome him.

He can hardly see from the heat behind his eyes, repulsion so incessant that he chokes on it.

He reaches for something to distract him. A book, from the bookshelf. He flips it open, and tries to read.

He can’t concentrate on the words. His head is pounding.

His hardly sees what he’s doing as he cracks the spine of the unworn cover and forces himself to tear the first page neatly down the seam, rather than crush the paper and rip with all his strength, as he wants.

The page falls aside. He tries the next one. He pulls too hard, and it rips uncleanly down the middle.

He pushes down the renewed surge of rage in frustration, and tries at the edge, tearing a strip off.

He continues like this, concentrating on making neat strips from the pages.

Narrowing them down, paring them thinner and thinner, as straight and uniform as his fingers can manage.

He tears and tears, until the action becomes monotonous, and his eyes unfocus.

He continues for a long time after that, until he’s clutching at the back cover of the book.

He blinks around the room like waking from a dream, surveying the devastation of his tantrum.

Strips of torn paper, some curled into rolls, are scattered like ashes across his tatami, fluttering into corners where the wind from the open screen has pushed them.

He fetches a dustpan and broom and sweeps the paper up, carefully, mindfully collecting the scraps. There’s so much of it, he has to return to empty the dustpan four times. The capacity of the book is the same, but it seemed to have expanded when he ripped up the pages.

He feels contained now.

He picks up the limp cover, threads dangling from the center, and discards that as well.

Tom Sawyer, on the blue dust jacket, watches him from the garbage bin.

Japan can’t move forward, with this fantasy of an oppressive America dominating his conscious.  

 

He burns the contents.

\----

_Phase Three_

After the security treaty is signed, Japan returns from San Francisco, and goes to deliver an apology. But not to America.

China is outside in his garden, smoking on a bench, under a plum tree. Japan wavers for a few uncomfortable seconds, before he pulls the legs of his trousers up and kneels in the wet grass. He touches his fingertips to the ground, then bends forward and presses his forehead down as well.

China speaks almost immediately.

“You’re tough showing up here, now that your boyfriend is protecting you from outside attacks,” China says.

He isn’t one to mince words, and he probably has a lot he would like to say to him. It’s no wonder such a thing slipped out, and Japan regarded it as nothing worth his concern. A slip of the tongue. Not a threat.

Anyway, Japan doesn’t respond. China’s clothes rustle as he changes position on the bench. Maybe he turns around, gets up, and crosses the garden to stand over Japan. The silence is longer this time, and Japan wonders what he’s making them wait for, as they are both here for the same reason. And neither _want_ to be here.

“Are you satisfied?” China asks, finally. His voice sounds closer. He’s at least regarding his guest properly now. Considering the time Japan took to come here, and do this, regard is the least China can give in return.

He considers China’s question:

_Am I satisfied?_

_With this apology, with being America’s subordinate, with the state the world is hurtling toward?_

China doesn’t sound disgusted, or smug, or concerned. Japan knows, by the unaffected monotone his old mentor is employing, that he’s feeling all of these emotions in some combination, nonetheless.

China was the one who taught him about propriety, containment, and the value of silence, after all.

The dew of the grass feels cold and sticky on his forehead.

“I am,” Japan says.

**Author's Note:**

> ****”Prompt and utter destruction” was the famous threat outlined in the Potsdam Declaration if Japan didn’t surrender unconditionally.  
> Also, the Japanese leaders just ignored the threat, they didn’t tell Truman to fuck off, Alfred is being dramatic.
> 
> Notes:  
> Phase 1: 1945- 1947-- Japanese demilitarization and punishment. War crime trials in Tokyo. Emperor becomes just a ceremonial guy, w/o real power. American imperative is converting the Japanese government to free market capitalism.  
> Phase 2: 1947- 1950 --America is hella concerned with keeping Russia from dominating basically anything. BIG economic rehabilitation stage for Japan. Because Japan is so poor, there's worry on the American end that the people of Japan will think communism is a good option.  
> Phase 3: 1950-1952-- Security Treaty. Japan agrees to allow America to have military presence in Japan (in exchange for protection from America), and also agrees to not form any military agreements with other nations w/out US approval.


End file.
